Legendary Milwaukee Brewers radio announcer Bob Uecker passed away on Thursday. People immediately started posting tributes and sharing their favorite Uecker stories and it quickly became apparent just how high his approval rating was amongst sports fans.
One of those sports fans who happened to have the honor of working with Uecker for years was Brewers' television play-by-play voice Brian Anderson. He has been calling games on Fox Sports Wisconsin (Now known as FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin) since 2007.
Anderson called into MLB Network after the news came out to discuss his friend and shared some incredibly funny and touching stories about getting to know him and how Uecker actually helped get him his job with Milwaukee. He also explained why Uecker was so good at his job and one of the best to ever do it.
.@Brewers play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson joins Matt Vasgersian and Tom Verducci to remember Bob Uecker. pic.twitter.com/ebE7n31y6W
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) January 16, 2025
"His gift was that—and I learned this from him—is there was, there was great knowledge first of all," said Anderson. "So he could be the analyst. He could dissect the game, but he also knew when to pull back, when to be funny, when to be serious. And he mostly, you know, 90-percent of his play-by-play was he played it straight with the Brewers all these years. Everybody thinks he's hilarious and he is. He's a comedic genius, but if you just sat down for a three-hour broadcast Ueck played straight. He called the game straight and proper. And there were moments of humor in there for sure, but he definitely had that gift of understanding the moment in front of him. He was fully present. Not just to the game in front of him when he was on the air, but everything around him in life. Fully present.
"That idealogy," Anderson continued. "That philosophy of life translated into a world-class broadcaster because he felt every moment and he called it properly. He had great joy in his voice so he was fun and easy to listen to. He had a real interesting resonance to his voice as well. It got really high-pitched when he got excited. He broke a lot of the broadcasting rules, i would say. You know you wouldn't teach at Syracuse or Northwestern, but he got away with it because he was so brilliant at it and just, there's that it factor when you connect to an audience. And nobody had the it factor like Bob."
Brian Anderson shares thoughts on his friend, Bob Uecker. https://t.co/VW443qd4EW pic.twitter.com/c5cunZcHkT
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) January 16, 2025
Anderson shared a couple more stories during an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show in 2024. Surely, he has a million more that we'll probably never hear.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brewers’ TV Announcer Brian Anderson Pays Tribute to Bob Uecker on MLB Network.
